Seattle Police are investigating to determine if an attack on a 15-year-old West Seattle boy was racially motivated.

Shane McClellan's father says his son was walking home from a friend's house Tuesday around 2 a.m. when he was approached by three black males and an Asian or Pacific lslander male.

Asking him first for a light, they then attacked him, kicking and hitting him and threatening him with a gun, said McClellan.

"They started punching, knocked him down, kicking him, robbed him of everything, stole his coat, shoved him to the ground, stuck a gun in the back of his head," described McClellan. "I can't tell you what it's like to see and not even be able to recognize your son."McClellan says they also burned the back of Shane's neck with cigarette butts before taking out a belt and making the racially-charged comments.

"When they were beating with the belt [they said] that they hated white people, and that's what the whipping was for," said McClellan.

Shane said they told him they singled him out because that was what his ancestors did to theirs.

The teen was unconscious until about 7 a.m., said McClellan, and he then stumbled into the street and was helped to a hospital by a passerby.

Seattle Police have referred the case to their Bias Crimes Unit for review as a possible hate crime.

Investigating to determine? You have to ask if this is a "hate crime"? The attackers actually stated that they were attacking the white kid because they hate white people, and you have to INVESTIGATE?????

By God, we need a revolution or a mass secession.

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After cooling down a bit: The cops do have to investigate to see if this guy's story is correct. Undoubtedly a real and brutal beating, no way it could be self-imposed (unlike 100.00% of the "hate crime" accusations on college campuses.) But it's not clear from the article if the attack was witnessed, and he could be misidentifying the attackers to avoid retribution. However: if his descriptions are anywhere near correct, then this is unquestionably a "hate crime" by every definition. If the cops refuse to prosecute this as a "hate crime" after zealously and relentlessly prosecuting every vague and false accusation of an attack by whites, then it's time for a mass secession.

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Update 6/6: The initial report was somewhat misleading. There was no chance of misidentification at the time the news report was written, because an alert cop had alreadycaught two of the brutal attackers within an hour after the attack.

When the officer returned to the site of the assault ... he found dried blood on the guardrails, an empty Four Loko brand energy beer can and fresh Marlboro Red cigarette butts, which he took into evidence.

As he was driving back to the precinct, the policeman saw a black man and a second man who appeared to be Filipino in their early 20s walking east in the 1600 block of Southwest Holden Street.

"I immediately noticed that the energy beer that both suspects possessed was the same brand, size and flavor as the empty can I located at the scene of the assault," Blake wrote in the report.

When Blake stopped the men he saw both had dried blood on their faces and/or hands, which were swabbed for DNA samples.

The two were arrested and (of course) released so they can continue to beat whites, which is the objectively observed goal of the entire government and "legal" system in this unfortunate land.

One of the talkers on the WSJ feature on Fox this morning asked if the BP oil spill will be like Three Mile Island: an event that causes us to abandon an entire sector of our economy. He's probably right, and the analogy is more complete, more perfect than he meant.

In both cases the real accident ruined a single energy-producing installation but didn't damage the country in any way.

TMI killed exactly nobody. And in fact exactly zero Americans have been killed by nuclear plants altogether. The BP well killed the 11 men who were working on it, but nobody else.

Most importantly, in both cases the enemy-controlled Propaganda Factories, following the commands of their Communist masters, have stirred up a completely fraudulent and completely criminal panic in order to kill a large sector of America's economy.

With TMI, the Soviets unquestionably succeeded. With the BP well, the jury is still out.

= = = = =

Sidenote: When I say Soviets in the context of TMI, I'm not just being speculative or paranoid as usual. I was an anti-nuke activist in those years and I know where we got our orders.

This happens occasionally in local or corporate situations, but it's never happened before in DC. Not once.

Sestak is thus a uniquely honorable man. Despite this, some filthy Republican shitheads have been trying to paint him as the criminal. I suspect the cable "news" channels have also been spreading this attitude to protect Obama, though I've basically stopped watching them. One caller to Rush today had obviously picked up this attitude, and (rather surprisingly) Rush took him to task, correctly defining Sestak as the honest side.

When Rush manages to say something good about a Democrat, no matter how grudgingly, it's also unprecedented.

But in the bigger picture, this small incident reveals something hugely corrupt about the entire system.

Both parties have been willing to sacrifice excellent candidates, willing to lose their own reputations and constituents, in order to keep Arlen Specter's cancerous ass on their own side.

Arlen Specter's cancerous ass is infinitely attractive and infinitely desirable to both political parties. Arlen Specter's cancerous ass is infinitely more important than the American people. This tells us everything we need to know about the parties.

Last night's dream: I was producing the Pakistani version of the Sally Jesse Raphael show, and trying to figure out how to make an interview with a transvestite seem interesting and titillating when he/she was clad in a burqa. First problem: how do you even show that he/she is a transvestite?

Where in the world did this come from? I've never been anywhere near TV production, never acquired the thought patterns of a talk show producer, haven't even watched Sally Jesse in at least 10 years.

(In fact, none of the cable channels available here carry any shows of that genre, which I used to enjoy watching. Why is a whole category missing, when other equally trashy categories are over-represented?)

As bemoaned before: Why can't I capture this level of originality in waking hours?

Notice something? The middle has dropped out. What remains? Both ends of the scale. At the top, super-aggressive pimpmobiles like Escalade and Navigator, only affordable by black drug dealers. At the bottom, Ford and Chevy for the few remaining middle-class whites. (Poor whites can't afford new cars; Jews and rich whites don't let their chauffeurs drive American cars; so those groups are out of the equation.)

Mercury provides an especially good 'gravestone' for the start and end of America, the start and end of the middle class, the start and end of the period when ordinary honest people, black or white, could live an ordinary life and buy an American car.

Born in 1939; died in 2010.
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Personal note: Though Mercurys were common for a long time, they weren't common in my part of the world. I've owned two Fords (Maverick and Fiesta); I've driven innumerable Ford cars and trucks; I've ridden many times in Lincolns; but I can't remember being inside a Mercury, let alone driving one. No friends or relatives ever owned a Merc, at least while I was around.

I've been stupidly hoping that Comrade Obama would be more pragmatic than Comrades Bush and McCain. Nope, he's the same. I hoped that his earlier opening of more offshore territory, and his earlier encouragement of nuclear power, was genuine if only strategic. Nope, he's just as wildly fanatical as Comrades Bush and McCain. They all want to shut America down, hand the remaining property to China, and give Goldman Sachs the commission on both sides of the deal.

They've been running Operation Topkill for a long time. The "news" media keep our senses plugged with an endless flood of mud, then finally the concrete comes down to stop the wellspring of America.

With great fanfare, the Repooflicans have announced their "America Speaking Out" program. A helium-loafered New York boy named Kevin rolled out a new website where loyal Wall Street Mafiosi can offer up fresh new ideas, like "Eliminate taxes on Wall Street!" or "Eliminate taxes on outsourcing!" or "Provide million-dollar subsidies for day traders!" or "Eliminate burdensome regulations on importing Dubai slave boys!" or "Eliminate taxes for me and my billionaire Life Partner!"

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Polistra has seen this before ... Ah! It was here:In 1950 Henry J. Kaiser opened up a national contest to name his new compact car. Amazingly!!!! the winning entry just happened to be the same name that Henry J. Kaiser wanted in the first place, which was "Henry J". Isn't that a weird and unearthly coincidence?

An interesting primary in Idaho's 1st cong district. We've been hearing lots of ads and news here in Spokane because local TV stations serve that part of Idaho.

Raul Labrador, a state legislator, nicely defeated an establishment type named Vaughn Ward.

With 435 of 462 precincts reporting, Labrador collected 48.1 percent of the vote compared to 38.8 percent for Ward, who described the race as "a humbling experience."

Ward was an early front-runner in the primary race, built a six-to-one fundraising edge and was designated as one of the National Republican Congressional Committee's top 23 recruits in its "Young Guns" candidate development program.

"I called Raul Labrador and congratulated him on his victory and will support him in his effort to reclaim this seat for the GOP in November," he told The Associated Press.

Palin came to Idaho on Friday to raise money for Ward and give a jolt to undecided voters in the 19 western counties that make up only one of two congressional districts in the state.

Repooflicans still haven't learned anything. They continue to pour money into the Wall Street fancypants types, who continue to lose.

Note also that Labrador, with a Spanish name and a slight Spanish accent, won nicely in allegedly racist North Idaho, while the lily-white New York boy lost.

However: In the end this primary won't matter much because incumbent Walt Minnick is doing a damn good job. Though nominally Dem, he's more pro-American than almost all Repooflicans.

A new study finds that naturally occurring bacteria in soil could enhance learning. And as a side benefit, it appears to be a natural anti-anxiety drug, but without the side-effects.

In studies presented Monday at the 110th general meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego, mice exposed to Mycobacterium vaccae navigated a maze twice as fast, and with less anxiety, as control mice.

In a second experiment the bacteria were removed from the diet of the experimental mice and they were retested. While the mice ran the maze slower than they did when they were ingesting the bacteria, on average they were still faster than the controls.

"The learning that occurred was profound," said Dorothy Matthews of The Sage Colleges in Troy, New York, who conducted the research with her colleague Susan Jenks.

Matthews said it's interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time outside where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks.

(Actually my parents didn't object to my playing in the dirt. They wanted to have me outside as much as possible, which was eminently sane and sensible for both kids and adults. I just felt the need for a jokey caption.)

North Korea announced on Tuesday it was cutting all ties with South Korea in retaliation for Seoul imposing sanctions on Pyongyang for torpedoing one of its warships.

The move is the latest in mounting tension on the peninsula following the sinking in March of the Cheonan naval vessel, killing 46 South Korean sailors.

"The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea .... formally declares that from now on it will put into force the resolute measures to totally freeze the inter-Korean relations, totally abrogate the agreement on non-aggression between the north and the south and completely halt the inter-Korean cooperation," the North's KCNA news agency reported.

It said all relations with the South Korean government would be severed and communications between the two states would be cut.

Since the government in America has been playing on Allah's team for many years, it will never never never never assist a mainly Christian country like South Korea.

A set of auto trivia points. Most of these are one-year exceptions to broad rules.
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1. What was the one year when you couldn't buy an American car with a floor shift?

1953.

From the very start of the automobile, gear levers were on the floor (with the major exception of the Model T, which had no lever at all; its clutch pedal served as the low-high selector as well). Column shifts began to appear in various forms around 1932 as aftermarket remote control devices. In 1938 Olds and Buick had the column lever in modern form, and by 1941 all major cars were on the tree. Only the tiny primitive Crosley kept a floor control. When Crosley died in 1952, no floor shifts were made in America for one year. Then in '54 the Corvette brought it back; other sporty cars joined in; finally in 1960 some 'family' cars had floor shifts again. The column shift started to disappear in the '70s as three-speed manuals and big families faded out. Its original purpose was to provide more passenger space in the front seat, which was really pointless. In the '30s and '40s, the typical front seat was too narrow to hold 3 people comfortably, regardless of lever location. By the time the typical car got wide enough for 3, the typical car was automatic anyway!

= = =

2. What was the one year when you could get an American car with a 4-speed column shift?

1963.

Column 4-speeds were common in Europe through the '50s and '60s, but for some reason American makers didn't pick up on the concept... with one very rare exception. Ford offered its British 4-speed column shift on the Falcon and the Econoline van in '63. Almost nobody bought them.

= = =

3.The newest Ford Fiesta will get 29 MPG in town, 40 MPG highway. Various commenters are cheering this development, a plain gasoline car running in the same league as hybrids, beaten only by roller skates like the Smart.

Well, why is 40 MPG so damn special and smug-worthy? Several compacts of the 1950s and 1960s got the same mileage, with a lower initial cost and vastly lower upkeep. Such as the Crosley mentioned above, or the Renault R8 that I owned and loved.

5. Suicide doors. In this case the gap during the uniform '50s was longer than one year. From the start of automobiles until about 1940, most four-door cars had the rear doors hinged at the back. GM pulled away from the pattern in 1940 with 'metropolitan sedans', with a shorter roof and front-hinged rear doors, but other manufacturers continued the clamshell arrangement through the '40s. The last high-volume suicide sedan was the '52 Studebaker. Chrysler limos and DeSoto taxis continued using an old-style body in '53 and '54. No suiciders at all in '55 and '56. Cadillac resumed in low quantities with its peculiar Eldorado Brougham in '57 and '58, then gave up. No suiciders at all in '59 and '60. Finally in '61 the clamshell came back in two different ways: the grand Lincoln Continental and Thunderbird, and passenger vans like the Chevy Greenbrier and Ford Econoline. Now it's widespread again. Most van-type SUVs have sliding rear doors that open from the front, and plenty of club coupes and club-cab pickups have small 'auxiliary' rear doors, often without external handles.
= = = = =
6. Brand hierarchy. Among the big three, GM was the champion of brand identity and hierarchy for a long time; Ford and Chrysler were slow to pick up the concept. In 1930, GM had 9 brands, Chrysler had 4, and Ford had 2. You could argue that Ford didn't even have brands as such until 1939; the Lincoln division was pretty much a way to keep Henry's son Edsel respectably busy, and wasn't a 'profit center'. But the others finally did catch up. What was the one year when Ford had more brands than GM?
1960.
Ford had 6 names and GM had 5. Ford, Edsel, Comet, Mercury, Lincoln, Continental. This is a bit tricky, because the Edsel was cancelled early in 1960 and Comet was introduced late in 1960 as a nominally separate brand. Everyone understood that Comet was Mercury's compact, but it didn't become the Mercury Comet until 1961. Also, Continental didn't deserve brand status. It was just a slight trim variation on Lincoln. Nevertheless, it was officially a marque.

= = =

7. Brand hierarchy again. What was the one year when Chrysler had more brands than GM?
1960 again!
Chrysler had 6 names and GM had 5. Valiant, Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, Imperial. Again this is a bit tricky, because Valiant was introduced in 1960 as a nominally separate brand. Everyone understood that Valiant was Plymouth's compact, but it didn't become the Plymouth Valiant until 1961.

= = =

8. If you count the Jeep (and its station wagon and Jeepster relatives) as a passenger car, most of the gaps disappear. In addition, the complete hiatus of auto production in WW2 disappears. With Jeep in the mix, you can say that cars, four-cylinder cars, small cars, and floor-shifted cars were all built continuously in America from 1902 to now.
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9. As shown above, the late '50s were a low point for real variety, a time when most alternatives disappeared at least temporarily. The smallest range of sizes, smallest range of engine types, smallest range of body styles. You could say that The 1956 American Car was a four-door sedan on a 116" wheelbase with a V8 of about 260 cid and an automatic transmission, and you'd be very nearly correct. Simultaneously, 1956 was the high point for styling variety. You could instantly identify every brand from every angle, in dim light at a distance, solely by its silhouette. You didn't need to see details like taillights and grilles and side trim. This had never been true before, and after 1960 it was never true again.
= = = = =
10. Another single-year exception. 1928 was the ONLY model year when you COULDN'T get a clashless transmission. In the first decade many cars used planetary systems and CVT pulleys and even the astonishing 1905 Sturtevant full automatic. After 1905 most cars moved to three-speed unsync'd crashboxes. Only the Ford T remained clashless through 1927, when the A finally fell in line with bad fashion. In 1929 Caddy got fully sync'd, then in '30 many makers answered with freewheeling. By '35 everyone was sync'd again. So 1928 was the one-year gap between the T and the Caddy.

McClatchy News employs the atrocious Helen Thomas, but they sometimes manage to tell the truth while all other "news" sources are insanely fixated on a shared lunatic lie.

Today they've done a splendid job on the BP oil spill.

All other Propaganda Factories from Fox to CNN are screaming about the UNPRECEDENTED UNPRECEDENTED UNPRECEDENTED UNPRECEDENTED WORST ECOLOGICAL DISASTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE!!! WE WILL NEVER SURVIVE THIS UNPRECEDENTED UNPRECEDENTED APOCALYPSE!! THIS IS THE END OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!! UNPRECEDENTED!!!!!

Amid all this shouting and spewing and shitting, McClatchy calmly drops in with this story which happens to be plain old truth:

MEXICO CITY – The Ixtoc 1 oil spill in Mexico’s shallow Campeche Sound three decades ago serves as a distant mirror to today’s BP deepwater blowout, and marine scientists are still pondering what they learned from its aftereffects.

In terms of blowouts, Ixtoc 1 was a monster – until the ongoing BP leak, the largest accidental spill in history. Some 3.3 million barrels of oil gushed over nearly 10 months, spreading an oil slick as far north as Texas.

Surprisingly, Mexican scientists say that Campeche Sound itself recovered rather quickly, and a sizable shrimp industry returned to normal within two years.

Luis A. Soto, a deep-sea biologist, had earned his doctorate from the University of Miami a year before the June 3, 1979, blowout of Ixtoc 1 in 160 feet of water in the Campeche Sound, the shallow, oil-rich continental shelf off the Yucatan Peninsula.

Soto and other Mexican marine scientists feared the worst when they examined sea life in the sound once oil workers finally capped the blowout in March 1980.

In the months after Ixtoc 1 was capped, scientists trawled the waters of the sound for signs of biological distress.

“I found shrimp with tumor formations in the tissue, and crabs without the pincers. These were very serious effects,” Soto said.

(This is the only problem with the story. Metrology again: What's the baseline? Were you counting shrimp tumors and crab malformations before the spill? If not, how do you know these are unusual?)

Another Mexican marine biologist, Leonardo Lizarraga Partida, said the evaluation team began measuring oil content in the sediment, evaluating microorganisms in the water and checking on the biomass of shrimp species.

As the studies extended into a second year, scientists noticed how fast the marine environment recovered, helped by naturally occurring microbes that feasted on the oil and degraded it.

“We were really surprised,” Lizarraga said. “After two years, the conditions were really almost normal.”

At that time surprise was justified, the word "unprecedented" was justified, because the effects of a big spill were actually unknown.

At this point we should know better, because BY GOD, WE DO KNOW BETTER. ON ALL IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, THE FUCKING EXPERIMENTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN DONE AND WE ALREADY HAVE THE FUCKING DATA, YET WE STILL COMPLETELY IGNORE AND COMPLETELY VIOLATE ALL THE KNOWN DATA AND EVIDENCE.

Orwell understood this process. It's not insanity, it's not retardation, it sort of resembles a universal Alzheimers, but even a senile patient has occasional lucid intervals. Our political and cultural machines brutally crush all lucidity.

A young ideilast pretosting at the Creatoin Musuem in Iwoa. I'm glad his or her edacution focused solely on hating Christains. He or she claerly didn't have any time to waste on superfloououos stuff liek speling or letering.

"We are the United States. We have faced down Fascism and outlasted Communism."

Notice the difference? Notice the lie? Notice the total dismissal of Kennedy,Nixon and Reagan? For Comrade Barack NMN Obama, those guys didn't do anything to face down Communism, they just sat around and "outlasted" it.

Gold is in the news this week, with the transparently silly Weiner complaint about Glenn Beck advertising gold. The complaint has no legal basis, since the same gold companies advertise on nearly all radio shows, left and right.

Thinking about this, I noticed an interesting parallel. In modern times, the gold-bug types are usually Libertarians or Randians. This political correlation is fairly new, but certainly strong.

Big-L Libertarians put the power of the Contract above all. They think the world can get along without governments if we'd only respect Contracts. Regulations should be replaced by lawsuits.

Horrible vision ... the ideal Randian heaven is Somalia, where no regulations ever interfere with raw bloody force. Even if you take it less literally, we're already on the way.

Since we're talking about people named Rand (ahem) let's look at Regulation vs Contract in medical practice.

Proper regulation would kick out bad doctors without hassling the good ones. Instead, we have the random threat of lawsuits. No matter how carefully you practice, you're equally likely to get hit. Result: Massive cost imposed on the whole profession, passed on to the customer, tremendous profit to lawyers and insurers, and the bad doctors keep on killing people.

And the Rand types misunderstand gold in a similar way. They see gold as a solid natural measure of wealth, a natural contract, while "fiat money" is airy and variable, an arbitrary product of government laws and regulations. Wrong again. Gold is no more natural than paper money. When gold was the most common tender, its value was controlled by governments just as paper money is now controlled by governments. Governments could pour more coins into the system or pull them out of circulation, just as they now do with paper money. Without a government guarantee of some kind, neither material has an intrinsic value.

Our problem is not paper money; our problem is that the Federal Reserve has been taken over in the last 20 years by servants of George Soros whose job is to kill America. The Soros servants could do this with gold or silver just as easily as with paper.

World Metrology Day was yesterday.
Metrology teaches how to use, calibrate and interpret tools and methods of measurement. There has never been a University Department Of Metrology, which explains why it's still a clean and valid discipline. Nobody has the job title of Metrologist, but most technician-level workers, especially in medical areas, do a whole lot of metrology. For instance, an audiologist has to devise methods to detect fake hearing loss.
There's only one World-Famous Metrologist: Fanny Farmer, who taught cooks the value of the Level Cup and the Level Tablespoon.
I didn't realize there was a special day for the subject, but it's always been important in my life. For most of my career I did technician-type work in acoustics and related subjects. Metrology was a central part of my work: knowing the limits of your measuring tools, finding the baseline, knowing the appropriate standards, calibrating to the standards, making the necessary adjustments to the tool or the measurements.

My long experience with calibration is why I'm so ferociously enraged at the murderous "scientists" who run the Global Warming hoax. It's a crime against Nature and a crime against Humanity, but at base it's a crime against proper measurement. These evil monsters intentionally ignore all the standards of metrology. They use 'tools' like tree rings that have no definite relationship to temperature, they ignore obvious defects in their real thermometers, they toss numbers together without regard for precision, and when that fails they simply make up numbers to "prove" their "case". They do it for money and power, and they reap the respect of the ignorant elites who call this crime "science" because it helps the elites gain money money money money MONEY and power power power power POWER.

I've always 'celebrated' metrology, or more precisely the National Bureau of Standards, on New Year's Eve. Since 1971 I've had a tradition of listening to WWV on whatever short-wave receiver was available. At first it was the majestic 8-tube Philco that Polistra is using here. That radio could pick up anything and make it sound like a concert hall. More recently it's been little battery-powered Chinese crap. Either way, as long as I can hear that special high beep at Zero Hours Zero Minutes Coordinated Universal Time, it's Happy New Year!

Next morning: By a neat coincidence, the first OTR clip on my bedtime playlist last night was a Lum & Abner episode containing a tribute to metrology. Clip is here; the cautionary tale about calibration starts about 4 minutes into the clip.

I notice the President for Life theme is coming up again. The talking point heads of the "opposition" "party" always use this against the current president. The current president is always plotting to eliminate elections and hold power forever.

The Left was afraid Reagan and Bush Senior would be Pres for Life; the Right was afraid Clinton would be Pres for Life; the Left was WILDLY afraid Bush Junior would be Pres for Life; and now the Right is afraid Obama will be P for L.

Nonsense. A proper level of paranoia gives a simpler answer:

The Party doesn't have to pull such a crude and obvious trick. All they have to do is insure that every President serves the Party. Potentially rebellious or heterodox candidates are deleted or discredited before the election. When the discrediting fails (as it did with Reagan) more extreme measures have to be taken.

The P for L theme is a nice distraction to keep the team players on both "sides" from observing the real permanent agenda, which doesn't depend on one man's power.

Texas is completing its schoolbook requirements, most of which are pretty good. For instance, they require WW2 history to include the thousands of Krauts and Italians who were interned, as opposed to the standard propaganda that focuses entirely on the Jap internment in order to play the race card.

In plain fact we rounded up everyone who seemed likely to be spies or saboteurs, and it worked. Of course we know better now. Under Bush and Obama we round up, strap down and disarm everyone who is likely to be pro-American, and give special high-class privileges and security clearances to enemy agents. This works very well for the enemy.

But Texas surrendered on one small idiotic point:

But Democrats showed more life than they had all day when Republican David Bradley tried to refer to the first black president as Barack Hussein Obama.

"The intent behind what you're doing, I think is pretty obvious," said Republican Bob Craig, urging Bradley to withdraw the suggestion.

"Please Mr. Bradley, don't use the middle name," said Democrat Lawrence Allen. "You know it's going to have a negative connotation in the press. Yes, it's his birth name, but you know the significance it will play in the press. We don't have to deal with it."

Finally Bradley relented. "To put an end to the whining I withdraw the motion," he said.

Well, fine. But that's not enough. In the name of equal rights, we have to apply this to everyone!

And other notable names and events must also be de-middled. Osama Laden, New City, Pope XVI, Martin King, J Hoover, T Pickens, e cummings, Vincent Gogh, World One, World Two.

Web addresses will be much easier to type. www.aol.com becomes www.com, www.amazon.com becomes www.com, and so on.

Organizations must also drop their middle names. ABA, AMA, AAA, ASA, all merge into AA. NBA, NSA, NEA, NRA, all merge into NA.

Universities, always on the vanguard of censorship, must de-middle. FSU, KSU, OSU, PSU ---> FU, KU, OU, PU. The universities without middle names will be happy to take over the resources of the formerly triliteral colleges, which were generally the less progressive ones anyway.

When your beliefs are somewhat outside the chalk lines of the usual idiotic corrupt game, you've got to be ready for the arena. Rand Paul clearly didn't do his homework, didn't get advice from someone like David Horowitz. When he walked into the arena with the Gramscian vultures, they ripped his liver out.

In this specific case, the way to prepare is to arm yourself with facts. When a Commie bulldyke vulture like Blitzer or Maddow starts skrawking about civil rights, hand it a laptop with the set of facts highlighted, and ask it to read the facts out loud. Sit back with your arms crossed and give it a choice of dead air or saying the facts in its own voice. Don't say anything more, don't answer any other questions, until the bulldyke vulture reads the facts out loud. The bulldyke vulture will most likely end the interview rather than read facts, since facts are Kryptonite to Commies. This will also be a win for you.

And what facts? A history of all the specific anti-discrimination laws and what happened to each "protected class" after the law. Show that the laws have never improved the lot of the "protected class", and in most cases have made their situation worse. This was, of course, the sole intended purpose of those laws. Stalin's greatest invention.

Even better for TV, include a set of timelines showing the economic progress of blacks, women, disabled people, etc. Then ask the Commie interviewer to point out the year when the relevant law was passed. The law's passage never marks the start of progress. Sometimes it's an indistinguishable location in a smooth upward curve that began long before the law; sometimes it starts a period of decline.

It's an easy case to make on a factual basis, but you can't say it in your own voice. You have to present it as neutral facts, with an invitation to look up the sources.

All the Propaganda Factories are hugging and weeping this morning about the three "hikers" in Persia getting a visit from their mothers.

All the Propaganda Factories believe without question the government's claim that these three "hikers" are just innocent wanderers. How dare the Persians accuse them of spying!!!!

Ratshit. Plain old common sense tells you they're spies. Ordinary wanderers couldn't get into Iraq in the first place. It's a war zone. And ordinary wanderers, after getting into a war zone for some cheerful strolling, wouldn't cross the border into another supposedly hostile country.

Persia is right.

And our government, which hired the "hikers", knows this good and goddamn well.

It's a long-standing and reciprocal international practice when spies are caught: the government that sent the spies never admits it. I'm not bothered by that. I'm angry about the total complicity of our allegedly "free" "press" in this whole campaign.

In 2002, Comrade Bush got us into Iraq and Afghanistan with a set of false arguments. The brand-D propagandists have been complaining about the Iraq falsehoods ever since, while ignoring the Afghanistan lies and generating new counter-falsehoods in the process. Now Comrade Obama is running the same sort of campaign to ensnare us into a war with Persia, and neither side complains. Partly, I suppose, because it's a direct continuation of a campaign started by Comrade Bush, so both "parties" have separate reasons to support it.

"Republican voters of Oregon District 4 have chosen Dr. Art Robinson to represent them in the November 2010 Congressional race against Democrat Peter DeFazio. With 70% of votes counted as of 8:54 pm, Art currently has 80% of the total."

It sounds like Robinson will be emphasizing education in his campaign, which makes sense: his family-run business publishes books and curricula for home-schoolers.

Equally important, Robinson is a pioneer and hero of real science, one of the earliest and steadiest opponents of the Carbon Cult.

= = = = =

Later: I'm genuinely puzzled by the complete lack of media attention to this win. Robinson is an interesting guy, a real outsider to politics, and somewhat aligned with Ron Paul. He soundly trounced a more ordinary Republican who was supported by the Tea Party. Those factors should make him worthy of notice, or so you'd think.

Only one national news website mentions him briefly. Among blogs, WUWT has a good write-up this morning.

For one thing, Monster Specter has finally lost his seat, which is the only thing he actually represented. This is a lot like the defeat of Conrad Burns by Jon Tester last time. In both cases an infinitely filthy gangster of infinite arrogance and infinite evil was beaten by a decent military man with the "heart of a servant".

For another, Arizona officials are steadily firing back at the Communists with strength and guts that I've never seen before. Occasionally politicians will say things that sound anti-Commie, but they almost never take actual steps to fight the enemy.

Here's a letter from the Arizona Corporation Commission, responding to Commissar Villaraigosa of the People's Civic Unit of Los Angeles:

I especially like the line "we'll be happy to take those electrons off your hands."

Homosexuals belong to the highest class of nobility, and thus receive a broader set of privileges; no commoner is ever allowed to criticize or look askance at them. Instant lèse-majesté.

Mohammedans are not universally exempt; when they actually bomb us or kill us by the thousands, we do notice it, and we "respond" by consuming our own army in randomly selected countries. But Mohammedans are high enough on the Byzantine scale of privilege that we can't ask them any uncomfortable questions.

But even a fair generalization has exceptions, and one popped up this morning. Comrade Michelle Obama's commencement speech was full of the usual globalist crap: you college-age idiots must never consider serving or helping Americans; you must instead serve Haitians and other foreigners.

However! One of her recommendations will truly bring unintended consequences if the young idealists follow it. She told them to use the web to read foreign news sources.

If they really do what she asks, they will be surprised and awakened.

Many sources are just as bad as American media, carrying the same pack of agreed-on suicidal lies; but several easy-to-read foreign sources are devoted to truth, and will open your eyes to alternate ways of dealing with the world.

I suspect Comrade Michelle hasn't actually read foreign sources recently. If she had, she wouldn't make this recommendation!

Only five years ago, her intended consequences would have been fulfilled. As of 2005, Europe and Russia were leading the vanguard toward the Brave New World of Zero Percent Carbon and 100 Percent Sharia. The Anglosphere was portrayed as the lagging caboose. Youths reading any foreign source would be magnetically pulled even harder toward Gaia and Allah.

Since 2005 the trend has shifted remarkably. While the Anglosphere is now roaring downhill at full speed, nationalist parties have taken control in several Euro countries and gained useful pluralities in others. And they are grabbing the switch, trying to reverse the Solar Train To Hell. Cancelling carbon-credit plans, prohibiting Mohammedan costumes and minarets, kicking out gypsies, encouraging Christian worship in schools.

Betcha a thousand dollars this is not the news Comrade Michelle wants youngsters to read.

As the Soviet media/government conspiracy marches through its predictable steps toward halting all offshore drilling, the constant verbal purpose is to "protect the Delicate Fragile Planet, the Tragically Overheating Environment."

Even if they meant it, the goal is pure nonsense in the first place. The living Earth (which is presumably what "the environment" ought to mean) consists mainly of bacteria and algae. All of us visible critters, from fish to birds to humans, are mere utilities. We exist to provide public housing and mass transit for bacteria. Where does crude oil fit into the picture of bacteria and algae? Simple. It's algae poop and bacteria food. It's always flowing from the ocean floor in quantities vastly exceeding this particular human-caused flow. Where does it all go? Dinner for bacteria.

So we're not talking about an "unprecedented" poison, we're talking about a temporary surplus of a chemical that Nature (i.e. bacteria) enjoys.

More to the point of the Sixth Law: Ask what happens when American firms stop drilling in the Gulf. Will we be Pure And Clean, with our Beautiful Fragile Delicate Wetlands full of Pristine Fragile Delicate Alabaster Mosquitos carrying Pristine Fragile Delicate Alabaster Malaria Microbes, like they did in the Glorious Proletarian Camelot Times Of Yore? Will we finally be free of Blood For Oil? Free of Halliburton Bushitler Cheeeney?

Nope, we'll have MORE oil spills.

The OTHER COUNTRIES who are also drilling in the same area are less dainty, less suicidal, more virile, more rational than we are. China doesn't give a flying fuck about "the fragile delicate wetlands". Same goes for Cuba and Vietnam. When we pull out, they'll be more than happy to move in. (Hmm. China ... Cuba ... Vietnam .... we pull out, Commies move in ... all soundsfamiliar somehow. Can't quite place it ....)

Therefore: When Comrades Bush and Obama try to shut down offshore drilling, their goal has nothing to do with "the fragile delicate wetlands". Their goal is to kill America and let China own the world.

Tonight's CBS News included the FIRST truly open-minded and truly unprejudiced feature on "global warming."

Overall, CBS alone is bravely returning to the pre-Watergate form of journalism, in which reporters try to find out what happened and tell the viewers about it. CBS is returning to the proud tradition of Bob Trout.

All the other broadcast media are stuck in the post-Watergate form of journalism, in which reporters KISS, EMBRACE, AND CELEBRATE everything and everyone who is Officially Approved By The Party this week, and SMASH TO BITS everything and everyone who is Officially Liquidated By The Party. These other media remain in the proud tradition of Pol Pot.

Dr. Stephen Hughes of the University of Technology in Brisbane said he was researching an article for science teachers when he discovered an error in the definition of "siphon."

He said the definition falsely claims siphons work due to atmospheric pressure when it is actually gravity that performs the function.

In a narrow strict sense, Hughes is right.

But as much as I enjoy seeing the experts knocked off their horses, I have to conclude that the dictionaries are perfectly correct in practical usage, which is the main job of a dictionary.

Here's the familiar siphon. Gravity is certainly involved; the liquid level in the destination must be lower than the liquid in the source. As long as the source has higher potential energy than the destination, you'll get flow, even though part of the hose may go higher than either level.

But atmospheric pressure is more salient to the task. As Polistra shows in #1, you have to create a pressure lower than ambient at the far end of the hose, in order to fill the hose completely with liquid. And then you have to keep air strictly out of the hose during the transfer; otherwise the adhesive forces between the liquid molecules will break, and the flow will stop.

In any practical siphon, your manipulation of air pressure is more important than your manipulation of gravity.

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Initially I wasn't going to write about this until I saw this more recent news item which coincidentally proves the point from a different angle. BP is using a "siphon tube" to pull oil from the busted wellhead in the Gulf. Gravity has nothing to do with this process; they're certainly not trying to transfer the oil into an even deeper undersea well! And yet we all understand what they mean by a siphon: a pumping action that depends on keeping air out of the tube.

Because every rational person can now find facts, apply logic, and recognize your "truth" to be perfectly false.

Because the profession of "science" stopped practicing science and started practicing a corrupt religion, blinded by a comprehensive and universal anti-theist theology, and equally blinded by billions of dollars from governments and corporations.

= = = = =

(In fairness, there are still many areas of science that are not corrupt, areas where truth is still truth. But the article is defending the corrupt parts. The article is asking, with perfect blockheaded stupidity, why outsiders recognize corruption as corruption.)

I've been wondering why the Commies in America held such an absolute unwavering hatred for Nixon.

Here's the structure or narrative that I start with:

Many American politicians worked against Soviet sabotage in the late '40s. Three of them made it to the Presidency: JFK, Nixon, Reagan. We tend to think of these men as belonging to different generations because they reached the top at different times and different situations. But in fact they were around the same age, worked together against Commies in the '40s, and had the same basic approach to life and politics.

All three were taken out by Commies in various ways. JFK was straightforwardly assassinated by KGB agent Oswald. Nixon was forced from office by a conspiracy of Soviets in Congress with Soviets in the media. KGB agent Bush Senior tried to assassinate Reagan but narrowly and miraculously failed; nevertheless, Reagan was weakened and KGB agent Bush Senior effectively took over by 1987 (strongly assisted by the same Soviet Congress/media collusion) then officially grabbed the office the next year.

This narrative accounts for JFK and Reagan, but doesn't really fit Nixon. After all, Nixon did more for the Left than any other president. He gave us Abortion, Affirmative Action and Environmentalism, the three Holy Sacraments of modern Gramscians. He pulled out of Vietnam, though he did some stupid things in the process. He appeared to be soft on Russia. This should have been enough to generate some forgiveness.

New info sheds considerable light on the problem and forces me to rethink Nixon. Today's London Telegraph features revelations by an old Chinese insider, presumably with the imprimatur of the Chinese govt.

Liu Chenshan, the author of a series of articles that chronicle the five times China has faced a nuclear threat since 1949, wrote that the most serious threat came in 1969 at the height of a bitter border dispute between Moscow and Beijing that left more than one thousand people dead on both sides.

He said Soviet diplomats warned Washington of Moscow's plans "to wipe out the Chinese threat and get rid of this modern adventurer" with a nuclear strike, asking the US to remain neutral.

Washington then told Moscow the United States would not stand idly by but launch its own nuclear attack against the Soviet Union if it attacked China, loosing nuclear missiles at 130 Soviet cities. The threat worked, he added, and made Moscow think twice, while forcing the two countries to regulate their border dispute at the negotiating table.

In other words, all the talk of detente was a deception, and Nixon remained just as solidly anti-Soviet as Kennedy and Reagan. More, in fact!

Harold Gray was a serious man, fiercely anti-Communist and pro-Christian, and his successors (though good artists) abolished his message. In fact, Annie's reputation for foolish optimism comes mainly from the post-'68 travesty.

Orwell as always. Best way to destroy an effective anti-Party message is to steal it and turn it into an absurd parody, and that's exactly what the post-Gray abusers of the franchise were doing.

Polistra used that idiotic reputation afewtimes to make points about our current collaborationist governments.

Come to think of it, the closest modern equivalent of the original Annie is South Park. Nobody else, in print or broadcast, does such a fine job of pricking busybodies, do-gooders, and oleaginous censors; nobody else so consistently defends plain old common sense.

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Update 6/13: When Gray died in '68, the strip lost its 'heart' and I stopped reading it ... but according to this article, Gray's successors later recaptured the proper spirit of Annie. I should have given the strip another chance. Wouldn't have mattered in the last twenty years anyway, since I stopped reading newspapers altogether. (Along with everyone else who might have appreciated Annie!) Fortunately, looks like the syndicate plans to give Annie a new life online, which will be distinctly welcome and worth paying for.

When you say failed you're implying that he did everything he meant to do, but his skills weren't up to the job, or his materials weren't good enough to make the kind of explosion he wanted.

When you say attempted you're implying that Shazam was prevented from carrying out his intended action.

And you're further implying that it was our dear loyal FBI who stopped him. Most of the media go ahead and say this explicitly.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE. The FBI didn't stop him until after his mission was complete.

And that's unfortunately normal. All the plots FBI has "thwarted" were half-baked imaginings by half-serious people who were easy to sting. All the serious events have proceeded to their conclusion. In some cases, like Nidal Hasan or Naveed Haq or the Little Rock military recruiter, the conclusion was deadly. In other cases, like Shazam, the conclusion was a dud.

But the distinction between a death and a dud has no connection with the efforts of the police. It's just a matter of skill, or in this particular case it could be an intentional lack of training and materials, a test or diversion.

We've also blurred the role of intention and policing in earlier assassinations. No doubt about Oswald; he completed his KGB assignment fully, and we reckon his seriousness appropriately. But in the paired KGB assassinations of John Paul 2 and Ronald Reagan, we deliberately underestimate their seriousness by calling them attempted assassinations. Hinckley and Agca were only marginally less deadly than Oswald; in fact they were only thwarted by excellent modern medical techniques. Police didn't stop them. If Reagan hadn't been close to a hospital with lots of gunshot experience, he very likely would have died.

That's not an attempted assassination; that's a failed assassination.

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Encouraging: This morning MSNBC seems to understand the difference. In fact they've used a livelier phrase: "Failed is not the same as foiled."

Medical Researchers at the University of Alberta reported today evidence that the orphan generic drug Dichloroacetate (DCA) may hold promise as potential therapy for perhaps the deadliest of all human cancers: a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. The report is published at the journal Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association of the Advancement of Science; it appears today at the journal's web site http://www.sciencemag.org/

In 2007 the U of A team led by Dr Michelakis, published evidence that DCA reverses cancer growth in non-human models and test tubes. The team showed then that DCA achieves these antitumor effects by altering the metabolism of cancer. By altering the way cancer handles its nutrient fuels, specifically the sugars, DCA was able to take away cancer's most important strength, the resistance to death [of the cancer cells, that is!] Since then, several independent groups across the world have confirmed the Alberta team's findings. In December 2009, the editors of "Science" predicted that cancer metabolism is one of only 5 areas across all scientific disciplines, to "watch for major breakthroughs" in 2010.

The U of A team set out to show that the way that DCA works in actual patients is the same with the way it works in the lab. In addition, researchers wanted to show whether DCA is safe and possibly effective in very sick patients with brain cancer.

By extracting glioblastomas from 49 patients over a period of 2 years and studying them within minutes of removal in the operating room, the team showed that tumors respond to DCA by changing their metabolism. Then, the team treated 5 patients with advanced glioblastoma and secured tumor tissues before and after the DCA therapy. By comparing the two, the team showed that DCA works in these tumors exactly as was predicted by test tube experiments.

...

The U of A results are encouraging and support the need for larger clinical trials with DCA. This work is also one of the first in humans to support the emerging idea that altering the metabolism of tumors is a new direction in the treatment of cancer, Michelakis and Petruk said.

One of the intriguing features of this work was that it was funded largely by public donations, including philanthropic foundations and individuals. In addition, it received support by Alberta public institutions, both the University of Alberta and Alberta Health Sciences. The multidisciplinary team that performed this challenging translational research included members of the Departments of Medicine, Diagnostic Imaging and Biomedical Engineering, Oncology and Neurosurgery. Clinicians, scientists, nurses and graduate students worked together for 2 years and express their gratitude to the people of Alberta, philanthropists, the patients and their families.

Yay!

Dichloroacetate is a simple chemical that develops on its own in city water systems, and it's so easy to synthesize that Big Pharma is completely uninterested in working with it. No huge profits, no way to monopolize a patent.

That's exactly why this is so important. It opens up a super-cheap cancer cure.

And obviously that's why the research has to be supported by ordinary people.

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A bit later: Google finds one unsurprising fact and one surprising fact.

Unsurprising: This discovery is well-covered in Canadian media but not mentioned even once in American media.

Consider that every US cable "news" program and every US "local" TV "news" broadcast includes at least one item each day about some kind of cancer study ... or more precisely, one item each day about some kind of breast cancer study. American "news" is, after all, written solely by women and solely for women. Well, now we have a genuine and likely cure for many cancers, which is already known to work on breast cancer in mice, and will be tested next on breast cancer in humans. You'd think such a wonderful development would merit just one brief mention? Nah. Only the expensive high-profit stuff gets mentioned in America. If it's not on a corporate press release, it doesn't exist.

Surprising: On this same day, an Edmonton man was arrested in Phoenix for selling fake DCA, apparently just sugar.

There is plenty of underground web-based interest in DCA, showing that (as usual) the people know the truth no matter how hard our Gramscian masters try to keep it from us.

What's specifically surprising, and maybe even a bit hopeful: American authorities arrested the faker, not the real researchers.

Since the end of the solidly nasty weather we've been in a strange 'popcorn' mode, with a set of odd little disturbances moving around in unusual directions, briefly interrupting otherwise excellent weather.

A five-minute windstorm on Sunday, a five-minute rainstorm on Monday, and now a five-minute tornadette on Tuesday. What's today's soup du jour? Five-minute time warp?

Rush just now: "I don't know how we could have a [president] who is worse than what we have now."

Easy.

We could have McCain.

Manchurian Candidate McCain had the same agenda as Comrade Obama. Affirmative action, open borders, prosecute American soldiers, bomb Christians, kiss Arab terrorists, close Guantanamo, donate all American industry to China, donate all American wealth to Goldman Sachs, Roe v Wade "is settled law", carbon is evil, we must eliminate carbon by destroying the pitiful ragged fraction of industry we still have.

Scorched earth. Do to America what Hitler and Tojo couldn't manage to do.

I double-dog-damn-DARE you to find the tiniest speck of difference between these two monsters.

But why would McCain be worse? Because he would have no opposition.

Democrats would go along with everything on his agenda because it's their agenda in the first place.

Repooflicans would go along with everything on his agenda because they're a pack of mindless fagass bitchass cowardass shit-eating microbes who automatically obey the "titular head" of their "party".

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My, we're in a fine mood this morning, aren't we?

Wonder if it's the sunspots. I noticed that drivers are acting crazy this morning; had a couple of truly weird close calls on my daily walk, even though I was being extra-careful and extra-patient.

The qualities of our masters haven't changed from 1954 to 2010, but the quantities have changed drastically.

In Joe's time Communists owned about 30% of the Fed bureaucracy; they owned Harvard and Yale but not much else in education; they owned religious and cultural institutions in New York but none in America.

Now they own 80% of the Fed bureaucracy, 100% of education, 95% of churches, 90% of culture, 100% of the political parties.

Of course they're a different breed of Commies now; as Gramscians they're solidly allied with Wall Street, which gives them control over the money as well as the power.

Polistra sees South Koreans as the best hope to carry Christianity and civilization into the future, now that America and Europe have abjectly surrendered to all available false gods. (Though a few parts of Europe are just now starting to awaken...)

This morning an old friend reported a dream in which North Korea is massing for a final attack. Since this old friend has a direct wire to the Universe, she is often correct about such things.

Google finds only two references to her, one obit-like paragraph and one mention of her "lifetime teaching achievement" award in 1977. She certainly deserved the latter. Mrs Hunholz spent her life teaching, and had an unparalleled talent.

She taught in BluemontSchool, in a working-class area of Manhattan. Though Bluemont was only a few blocks from K-State, very few professors lived on that side of town. Most parents were mechanics or store clerks or Mexican migrants. (My parents didn't stay there long; this was their first year in Manhattan, and they were renting until they could save up enough to buy. The next year they moved into a higher-status area where they could keep up with the Prof Joneses.)

Mrs Hunholz knew how to deal with the wide range of behaviors and intellects that confronted her every year. She didn't need Individualized Education Plans or Diagnostic Criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. (Of course those teacher-crippling devices weren't even imagined yet in 1956.)

She simply understood each kid, organized and delegated the work, and applied learning to every sense and muscle.

How do you keep the smarty-pants kids like me and Judy from getting bored and making trouble? How do you keep the behind-the-curve types like Fernando and Rayleen from getting lost and making trouble?

Mrs H knew how. She assigned the smarty-pants kids to individually tutor the behind-the-curve types. So I taught Fernando to read, Judy taught Rayleen to read, while Mrs H ran the middling types through the regular routine. It worked.

Most of all, Mrs Hunholz kept our hands and eyes and ears and noses and mouths full of learning. Lots of walking field trips to nearby businesses, various types of food always cooking at the back of the classroom. We learned how popcorn pops, how to make hominy from corn, how the bakery makes bread, how the dairy bottles milk and makes butter, how the butcher cuts meat.

She wasn't short on discipline when it was needed. Once I fell under the influence of a big fellow named Charlie, who gave me the choice of helping him bully others or taking the brunt of his bullying. Unfortunately I chose the former, helped Charlie steal crackers from a weak first-grader. Mrs H heard about it somehow, and I spent the next day standing up in the cloakroom among the wet boots and coats.

At the other end of the scale, she knew exactly when to skip organization and discipline. As a classic nerd, I've never been remotely competent at any sort of athletics. When the other boys were playing baseball at recess, I played in the dirt, building roads and houses. Mrs H made one gentle effort to get me into the team play, then apparently decided that I was learning more by building things than by throwing balls. All later teachers, from 3rd grade through 12th, forced me to participate in the ball games. This did not make me a good teammate or a good athlete; it only taught me repeatedly and miserably that nobody wanted me on their team.

You simply can't follow an act like Mrs Hunholz. The next three years of school, in the "better" part of town, presumably had teachers ... but I don't remember any of them. Grades 3,4,5, just a waste of time. It wasn't until Mr Guest in 6th grade that I encountered another real teacher.

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Here's a super-simplified memory image. Supposed to represent me, Fernando and Judy ... but of course Mrs Hunholz really had 35 kids under her wing!

= = = = =
Much later thought, triggered by NPR's little salute to the 60th anniversary of Charlotte's Web. A couple times Mrs Hunholz took advantage of my adult reading ability, letting me read that book to the class while she went somewhere else. I never had any trouble with the other kids; they apparently sensed that I was approved as "replacement teacher" for a few minutes. Sudden realization: Mrs H did for me exactly what Charlotte did for Wilbur.

There's a lot to be said for a proper Nationalist attitude, an understanding that one country is not the same place as another country.

And there's a lot to be said for thriftiness, for being 'independently poor', so that your subsistence doesn't depend on the flip of some rich asshole's dice.

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Artistic note: The text above is really an incidental afterthought. Actually, I pictured this scene with Happystar sleeping in a nightcap, then I had to go ahead and build the image as a serene counterforce to the wind-induced tension of the last few weeks.

These pix, especially the last one, show clearly why the Koreans will take over America's former niche. Modern Koreans are a lot like 1950's Americans (ie Americans before our mass vasectomy/lobotomy). They're jocular, unhindered by sensitivity or political correctness, maybe a bit too rambunctious, strongly religious, smart, hard-working, and above all practical!

The crisis results from the financially troubled state's decision to slash $393 million from state trial courts in the budget this year. The state also has been closing all California courthouses on the third Wednesday of every month, with employees unpaid for those days.

"It's unprecedented," said McCoy. "Even during the Great Depression we did not close down court operations. We kept the courts open."

What has emerged is a hobbled court system that is struggling to serve the public.

Custody hearings, divorce proceedings, small-claims disputes, juvenile dependency matters and civil lawsuits have been delayed amid the courtroom shutdowns in Los Angeles. Drivers who choose to fight traffic tickets now have to wait up to nine months to get a trial started.

Complex civil lawsuits involving business affairs could be stalled as long as four years, McCoy said, with a ripple effect in the business community.

This will be the best thing ever to happen to California.

All courts slowed down = Prosecutors will be unable to indulge their sadistic fetishes, unable to mount monstrously false Stalinist show trials against totally innocent people. They will be forced, grudgingly and reluctantly, to work only on real cases involving real crime. With luck some of them will find this drab chore so sexually frustrating that they will quit.

Divorce and custody proceedings impossible = More families will choose to stay together and find ways to make marriage work.

Civil lawsuits delayed many years = No way for plaintiffs to force settlements. When settlements happen through arbitration, they will have considerably more sense and fairness. Medical malpractice costs will drop significantly, pressure on other business will be eased.

I hope somebody like Walter Olson decides to keep track of this. Despite its worst and most evil intentions, Calif has been forced to enact the biggest and best tort reform project in American history, and the results need to be tabulated.

After a nearly perfect March, most of April and the first week of May were nasty. Windy and rainy, climaxing in a serious windstorm on Monday. Worst storm since '91. I got lucky this time, no damage to trees or fence or house, but it was a fearful time and many local households weren't lucky.

In the end Brown made mincemeat of Comrade Fucking Fool Cooper. Or should that be mincing-meat?

Damn, it's refreshing to hear someone on the side of truth who knows how to knock down the media. In the "global warming" discussions, all of the pro-science spokesmen have been too gentle and tentative, either unprepared or unwilling to kick the Commies in the nuts.

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Sidenote: I'm ashamed to admit I went along with the fall-guy-izing of Brown in 2005. At that point I was suspicious of Bush but not yet certain he was working for the enemy. It was the Dubai port fiasco in early '06 that finally convinced me of Sultan Bush's complete treason.

What? He's a Mohammedan?????? How can this be????? All terrorists are Southern Baptist members of the Tea Party!!!! Everyone knows this!!!! The FBI doesn't even bother to keep track of anyone who isn't a white Southerner, because everyone knows that only white Southerners are capable of crime!!!!

What? He comes from Pakistan? How can this be? Pakistan is our Loyal And Faithful Friend and Ally!

And he was flying to Dubai (on a one-way ticket paid by cash)??? How can this be? Dubai is our Loyal And Faithful Friend and Ally!

And he comes from a rich and privileged family? How can this be? Terrorists are always poor and underprivileged! Everyone knows this!!!!

And he got a Masters Degree in America? How can this be? Ignorance causes terrorism, and education cures terrorism! Our own Secretary of State has told us this!!!!!

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Satire aside, the only slightly unusual thing about Mohammed bin Mohammed bin Mohammed bin Mohammed bin Shazam, his only real departure from an accurate profile of terrorists, is that his Masters Degree is in Business, not Engineering.

And credit where credit is due: on this story as on many others, CBS News is consistently a little closer to common sense than the other MSM sources, consistently a little less prone to the standard idiocy.

About Me

Polistra was named after the original townsite of Manhattan (the one in Kansas). When I was growing up in Manhattan, I spent a lot of time exploring by foot, bike, and car. I discovered the ruins of an old mill along Wildcat Creek, and decided (inaccurately) that it was the remains of the original site of Polistra. Accurate or not, I've always liked the name, with its echoes of Poland (an under-appreciated friend of freedom) and stars. ==== The title icon is explained here. ==== Switchover: This 2007 entry marks a sharp change in worldview from neocon to pure populist. ===== The long illustrated story of Polistra's Dream is a time-travel fable, attempting to answer the dangerous revision of New Deal history propagated by Amity Shlaes. The Dream has 8 episodes, linked in a chain from the first. This entry explains the Shlaes connection.